TeraWulf (WULF), an environmentally minded bitcoin miner, was falling almost 24% in its first day of trading on Tuesday.
TeraWulf went public after it agreed in June to merge with Ikonics, an imaging-technology company whose stock traded on Nasdaq. The ticker changed to “WULF” from “IKNX” on Tuesday.
“Completing the business combination takes us one step closer to achieving our mission of generating environmentally sustainable bitcoin at industrial scale in the United States while using over 90% zero-carbon energy,” said Paul Prager, CEO of TeraWulf, in a statement.
The shares of crypto miners, which are highly correlated to the price of the digital assets they mine, have declined sharply recently, after the price of bitcoin fell to near $47,000 after reaching an all-time-high in November.
TeraWulf, which expects to mine bitcoin powered by nuclear, hydro and solar energy, recently raised $200 million in debt and equity financing, which it will use to reach mining power of 6 exahash per second by the second half of 2022.
In the financing round, several high profile investors, including actress Gwyneth Paltrow, actress and comedian Mindy Kaling and Canadian comedian Lilly Singh collectively made an eight-digit equity investment in the company, according to an emailed statement.
“TeraWulf is positioned to mine zero-carbon Bitcoin domestically at an industrial scale. And equally crucial, the highly-experienced management team is passionate about diversity and inclusion, reflected in their executive team and the fact that they welcomed us with open arms not simply as an investor, but as a true partner,” Paltrow said in a statement announcing the funding.
The group that invested with Paltrow also included entrepreneurs Moj Mahdara, Kimberly Blackwell and Sara Foster; CEO of KITH Ronnie Fieg; FIGS Co-CEO Trina Spear; tech executive Pegah Ebrahimi; NFT & streetwear entrepreneur Bobby Kim; and TikTok’s Head of Global Marketing Nick Tran.
TeraWulf said it expects to have 800 megawatts of mining capacity deployed by 2025, enabling over 23 exahash per second of expected hashrate, making it one of the largest publicly traded mining firms.
